Ok, so it's been almost forever since I posted anything on here, and this isn't actually going to be a very long post at all... mainly just posting a link to this, which is (as far as I can tell) an actual exam paper from an undergrad subject that was very popular among the "student athlete" population of a major US university. To quote some of the questions (and yes, these are a pretty representative selection of the 20 multiple-choice questions that were on this exam paper, with the spelling and random capitalisation errors fixed by me...):
How many goals are on a basketball court?
How many halves are in a college basketball game?
How many points does a 3-point field goal count for in a basketball game?
Mmm, academic rigour... And yes, the "lecturer" (one of the assistant coaches of the basketball team) was fired for this, among other misdeeds.
But anyway - I did promise various people that I'll upload some photos from my most recent trip to Europe here at some point, and I do intend to do that - I'm taking most of next month off work, so will have plenty of time for uploading photos and posting random rantings then. I've been spending this month writing and re-writing journal papers, fixing broken analytical instruments, and revising and modifying (and sometimes rewriting) teaching materials to use this semester... so I've earnt a break, I think.
29 January 2010
12 December 2009
Assortments and oddments
- People who drive slowly in the 'fast' lane of freeway really bug me. To the point of questioning their ancestry - not only regarding legitimacy, but also species.
- Ditto caravans on highways.
- The Amazing Race episode ran through Prague this week. I will be there in a couple of weeks. Very scenic, and very cool. Very very much looking forward to the upcoming European Christmas adventure as well. Photos will follow in due course.
- Wearing shorts on planes is definitely the way to go. Partly because it's more comfortable, partly because the blankets on long flights are plenty warm enough anyway, partly because it saves an extra pair of clean jeans for one's destination, and partly because shorts are just generally the ultimate form of clothing.
- Skype is the best thing ever, and I would promise to name my first-born child after it if it wouldn't lead to endless bullying at school...
- Salvation Army brass bands playing Christmas carols will always make me stop and listen. I love a brass band, and I love a Christmas carol or two, so the combination is magic. Keep up the good work, fellas.
- The Euro is one of the best ideas Europe has ever had. Unfortunately, of the 5 countries I will be visiting there on my next trip, only one actually uses Euros. Money-changers, here we come...
- Ditto caravans on highways.
- The Amazing Race episode ran through Prague this week. I will be there in a couple of weeks. Very scenic, and very cool. Very very much looking forward to the upcoming European Christmas adventure as well. Photos will follow in due course.
- Wearing shorts on planes is definitely the way to go. Partly because it's more comfortable, partly because the blankets on long flights are plenty warm enough anyway, partly because it saves an extra pair of clean jeans for one's destination, and partly because shorts are just generally the ultimate form of clothing.
- Skype is the best thing ever, and I would promise to name my first-born child after it if it wouldn't lead to endless bullying at school...
- Salvation Army brass bands playing Christmas carols will always make me stop and listen. I love a brass band, and I love a Christmas carol or two, so the combination is magic. Keep up the good work, fellas.
- The Euro is one of the best ideas Europe has ever had. Unfortunately, of the 5 countries I will be visiting there on my next trip, only one actually uses Euros. Money-changers, here we come...
01 December 2009
Science ain't what she used to be...
...and in some ways, that's probably a good thing. Yes, all the bureaucracy and ethics committees and so on get in the way sometimes, but it is a little weird to read some of the things that used to be done before such things were invented. A bit of background: the publishing arm of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK are celebrating their 350th birthday, and so have posted online a really fascinating collection of interesting papers published over all of those years here. Some of the really early ones are worth a read (if you can pick your way through some of the Ye Olde Englishe and the use of the old-style curly s that looks like an f) - like this one, for example, of which I have translated a few lines into modern spellings (but with capitalisation and punctuation maintained intact) to give an idea of what they were doing:
An Account of an Experiment made by Mr Hook, of Preserving Animals alive by Blowing through their Lungs with Bellows
(and note that 'Mr Hook' is actually Robert Hooke, as in Hooke's Law of elasticity)
I did heretofore give this Illustrious Society an account of an Experiment I formerly tried of keeping a Dog alive after his Thorax was all displayed by the cutting away of the Ribs and Diaphragm; and after the Pericardium of the Heart also was taken off. But diverse persons seeming to doubt of the certainty of the Experiment (by reason that some Trials of this matter, made by some other hands, failed of success) I caused at the last Meeting the same Experiment to be shown in the presence of this Noble Company, and that with the same success, as it had been made by me at first; the Dog being kept alive by the Reciprocal blowing up of his Lungs with Bellows, and they suffered to subside, for the space of an hour or so, after his Thorax had been so displayed, and his Aspera arteria cut off jut below the Epiglottis, and bound on upon the nose of the Bellows.
So, basically, the process of doing science doesn't seem to have changed much over the past 350 years - you do an experiment, people try to reproduce it and fail, so you have to show them again how to do it properly. Oh, and just in case you thought people are particularly much nicer to animals in modern science, this is part of the abstract I grabbed from a paper I was reading not long ago...
"Of the particulates tested, only asbestos, quarry dust, fibreglass and galena (lead sulfate) were visible in vitro. These particulates were then examined after delivery into the nasal airway of live anaesthetized mice; all were detectable in vivo but each exhibited different surface appearances and behaviour along the airway surface."
Ok, so maybe we are a bit nicer these days - the mice were at least anaesthetised before being zapped with X-rays, unlike the poor dog with a bellows attached to its lungs... So, having read that article, I'm actually now much much less inclined to complain about needing to go to an ethics committee for animal-related experiments (and yes, I'm looking into doing some work in that area, and no, it doesn't involve interactions involving concrete... I do other things as well as concrete, it's just that concrete is the main one at the moment)
The other thing to note is that the mean sentence length in scientific/technical writing does actually seem to have decreased over the past 350 years, which I must classify as being a good thing in terms of readability and comprehensibility. Having said that, though, while Hooke's writing style is a bit wordy by my standards, he does have an elegance of expression which is sadly missing in most modern science writing. See, for example, his final paragraph:
I shall shortly further try, whether the suffering of the Blood to circulate through a vessel, so as it may be openly exposed to the fresh Air, will not suffice for the life of an Animal; and make some other Experiments, which, I hope, will thoroughly discover the Genuine Use of Respiration; and afterwards consider of what benefit this may be to Mankind.
As a conclusion to a paper, that's not a bad one...
An Account of an Experiment made by Mr Hook, of Preserving Animals alive by Blowing through their Lungs with Bellows
(and note that 'Mr Hook' is actually Robert Hooke, as in Hooke's Law of elasticity)
I did heretofore give this Illustrious Society an account of an Experiment I formerly tried of keeping a Dog alive after his Thorax was all displayed by the cutting away of the Ribs and Diaphragm; and after the Pericardium of the Heart also was taken off. But diverse persons seeming to doubt of the certainty of the Experiment (by reason that some Trials of this matter, made by some other hands, failed of success) I caused at the last Meeting the same Experiment to be shown in the presence of this Noble Company, and that with the same success, as it had been made by me at first; the Dog being kept alive by the Reciprocal blowing up of his Lungs with Bellows, and they suffered to subside, for the space of an hour or so, after his Thorax had been so displayed, and his Aspera arteria cut off jut below the Epiglottis, and bound on upon the nose of the Bellows.
So, basically, the process of doing science doesn't seem to have changed much over the past 350 years - you do an experiment, people try to reproduce it and fail, so you have to show them again how to do it properly. Oh, and just in case you thought people are particularly much nicer to animals in modern science, this is part of the abstract I grabbed from a paper I was reading not long ago...
"Of the particulates tested, only asbestos, quarry dust, fibreglass and galena (lead sulfate) were visible in vitro. These particulates were then examined after delivery into the nasal airway of live anaesthetized mice; all were detectable in vivo but each exhibited different surface appearances and behaviour along the airway surface."
Ok, so maybe we are a bit nicer these days - the mice were at least anaesthetised before being zapped with X-rays, unlike the poor dog with a bellows attached to its lungs... So, having read that article, I'm actually now much much less inclined to complain about needing to go to an ethics committee for animal-related experiments (and yes, I'm looking into doing some work in that area, and no, it doesn't involve interactions involving concrete... I do other things as well as concrete, it's just that concrete is the main one at the moment)
The other thing to note is that the mean sentence length in scientific/technical writing does actually seem to have decreased over the past 350 years, which I must classify as being a good thing in terms of readability and comprehensibility. Having said that, though, while Hooke's writing style is a bit wordy by my standards, he does have an elegance of expression which is sadly missing in most modern science writing. See, for example, his final paragraph:
I shall shortly further try, whether the suffering of the Blood to circulate through a vessel, so as it may be openly exposed to the fresh Air, will not suffice for the life of an Animal; and make some other Experiments, which, I hope, will thoroughly discover the Genuine Use of Respiration; and afterwards consider of what benefit this may be to Mankind.
As a conclusion to a paper, that's not a bad one...
28 November 2009
Some of this sounds familiar...
From an interview with one of the scientists on the LHC project (the giant particle-smasher in Switzerland):
"It smells probably much like you'd expect -- a bit 'games-heavy'. The experimentalists and the theoretical physicists have a different odour. The excessive amount of soft cheese in the area doesn't add to the spring-time freshness of the site."
Ah yes, the brilliant combination of theoretical physicists' notoriously poor personal hygiene, and fragrant food. I remember noticing the same thing at at least one of the synchrotrons I've worked at - although in that case it was mainly the $2-a-plate spicy omelettes and (incredibly nice) pork dumplings rather than French cheese...
Although, from the same interview, this one is a bit below the belt, particularly coming from someone originating from the northern half of England... :P
"The official languages of CERN are English and French, but it depends which group you're working in. There are around 3,000 physicists. You get an awful lot of German, Italian, plenty of Spanish, lot of Japanese, Russian, Australian (because that's not really English)."
"It smells probably much like you'd expect -- a bit 'games-heavy'. The experimentalists and the theoretical physicists have a different odour. The excessive amount of soft cheese in the area doesn't add to the spring-time freshness of the site."
Ah yes, the brilliant combination of theoretical physicists' notoriously poor personal hygiene, and fragrant food. I remember noticing the same thing at at least one of the synchrotrons I've worked at - although in that case it was mainly the $2-a-plate spicy omelettes and (incredibly nice) pork dumplings rather than French cheese...
Although, from the same interview, this one is a bit below the belt, particularly coming from someone originating from the northern half of England... :P
"The official languages of CERN are English and French, but it depends which group you're working in. There are around 3,000 physicists. You get an awful lot of German, Italian, plenty of Spanish, lot of Japanese, Russian, Australian (because that's not really English)."
20 November 2009
Worst injury excuse ever... well, almost.
For those who haven't heard of Shoaib Akhtar, he's a Pakistan player who is reputedly the fastest bowler in the world of cricket, but also a reasonably colourful character - having previously been suspended for hitting a teammate with a bat, been sent home from England for turning up to play cricket there without a work visa, been caught smoking pot in a nightclub, tested positive to steroids, and so on and so forth - in amongst destroying opposing batting line-ups and setting world records for bowling faster than anyone else.
However, he's really managed to outdo himself this year. Earlier in the year, he missed a major tournament because, in the words of the Pakistan Cricket Board press release, "the medical board has reported that Shoaib Akhtar was suffering from genital viral warts and the wound needs further care and treatment for another 10 days" (urgh). And now, he's going to miss the Australian summer tour because he "had grown so out of shape in recent months that he decided to have fat sucked from his midriff in a bid to return to the game slimmer and faster. Due to the operation, he will be sidelined for up to five months..."
Yep, that's right, he's going to miss almost half a year of cricket because rather than bothering to exercise to try to remove the extra weight - as most sportspeople would do - he's decided that he can just get it all cut off and be as good as new. It might work for movie stars and celebrities, but I'm afraid that in the world of sports, there's no real alternative to just putting in the hard yards... well, except steroids, but he's already given that a shot and it didn't seem to work for him. Oh well.
However, he's really managed to outdo himself this year. Earlier in the year, he missed a major tournament because, in the words of the Pakistan Cricket Board press release, "the medical board has reported that Shoaib Akhtar was suffering from genital viral warts and the wound needs further care and treatment for another 10 days" (urgh). And now, he's going to miss the Australian summer tour because he "had grown so out of shape in recent months that he decided to have fat sucked from his midriff in a bid to return to the game slimmer and faster. Due to the operation, he will be sidelined for up to five months..."
Yep, that's right, he's going to miss almost half a year of cricket because rather than bothering to exercise to try to remove the extra weight - as most sportspeople would do - he's decided that he can just get it all cut off and be as good as new. It might work for movie stars and celebrities, but I'm afraid that in the world of sports, there's no real alternative to just putting in the hard yards... well, except steroids, but he's already given that a shot and it didn't seem to work for him. Oh well.
15 November 2009
An unusual combination...
International rugby match in France, South African national anthem, reggae "singer", backed by a military band and two Rasta-style drummers. This was never going to end well...
And by the way, the South African anthem really is in my opinion one of the best anthems going around - this is what it should sound like...
And by the way, the South African anthem really is in my opinion one of the best anthems going around - this is what it should sound like...
14 November 2009
On pronouns and possessions
As usual, it's been a long time between posts... so I'm going to make up for it by posting something that contains actual thoughts, opinions and so on. And yes, it's addressing a strange topic - pronouns and related words, and in particular the fact that the ones we have available to us are at best a blunt instrument to describe some of the concepts we are trying to explain. I will also preface this by saying that I have precisely zero training in linguistics, philosophy, or any of the academic sides of this, so there are probably well-formed theories and discussions addressing exactly the sorts of things I'm ill-informedly rambling about here, but that has never yet been known to stop a blogger yet...
The main complaint I actually have here, and the reason I started thinking about this, is all about the concept of the word 'my'. This indicates ownership - but it doesn't explain in which direction the ownership actually goes. For example, when I say 'my car', it means the car that I own. However, when I say 'my country', there is no way in which I can claim ownership of the country... well, other than the fact that I do own about half of a small inner-city apartment that the bank very generously lets me live in. And yes, I nearly typed 'my bank' in there as well - but I certainly don't own the bank, in fact it's far more likely that they own a share in me, given the amount of money I owe them through my mortgage.
So, the question of who does the owning in the 'my country' relationship is an interesting one - or is there in fact any ownership at all? I tend to think it's more a case of allegiance rather than ownership - I owe, and promise, allegiance to my country, but I certainly can't claim to own it. I would also put the concept of 'my girlfriend' into a similar category - in no way can I claim any form of ownership, but I do promise allegiance, loyalty and love as part of that relationship. It therefore seems unfair to me to use the same word 'my' to describe 'my girlfriend', 'my country' and 'my car' - there are two very different levels on which the word 'my' is working, and I would really like another word to be available to make this distinction, but the English language doesn't let us do this, except in a very roundabout way ('the country to which I owe allegiance' is at best a clumsy sentence). I don't know if there are any languages in which this distinction is able to be made clearly or easily (I haven't seen it in any of the languages I've studied - being English, high-school level Chinese, and now a bit of Spanish), but maybe a multilingual reader or two could comment..?
The main complaint I actually have here, and the reason I started thinking about this, is all about the concept of the word 'my'. This indicates ownership - but it doesn't explain in which direction the ownership actually goes. For example, when I say 'my car', it means the car that I own. However, when I say 'my country', there is no way in which I can claim ownership of the country... well, other than the fact that I do own about half of a small inner-city apartment that the bank very generously lets me live in. And yes, I nearly typed 'my bank' in there as well - but I certainly don't own the bank, in fact it's far more likely that they own a share in me, given the amount of money I owe them through my mortgage.
So, the question of who does the owning in the 'my country' relationship is an interesting one - or is there in fact any ownership at all? I tend to think it's more a case of allegiance rather than ownership - I owe, and promise, allegiance to my country, but I certainly can't claim to own it. I would also put the concept of 'my girlfriend' into a similar category - in no way can I claim any form of ownership, but I do promise allegiance, loyalty and love as part of that relationship. It therefore seems unfair to me to use the same word 'my' to describe 'my girlfriend', 'my country' and 'my car' - there are two very different levels on which the word 'my' is working, and I would really like another word to be available to make this distinction, but the English language doesn't let us do this, except in a very roundabout way ('the country to which I owe allegiance' is at best a clumsy sentence). I don't know if there are any languages in which this distinction is able to be made clearly or easily (I haven't seen it in any of the languages I've studied - being English, high-school level Chinese, and now a bit of Spanish), but maybe a multilingual reader or two could comment..?
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